To expect to at least be able to eat what dd2 has cooked, seeing as it cost me £10 for the stuff ??

[TheOriginalNutcracker]

ARGH bloody cooking lessons.

Dd2 was doing chicken tikka. So, £10 of ingrediants later and off to school she trots.

She's just come home and said that they couldn't get the lid to fit on her tupperware container and so the teacher is just going to chuck it. The lid does bloody fit, it's just stiff and surely the teacher had something else that dd could have used if not.

£10 down the drain, just like that.

YABU. Nothing Ds1 has bought home has ever been edible. The fruit salad was the worst. They put sugared water in it.

Oh dd1's stuff has always been alright, so dd2's might have been too.

Am I allowed to swear on your thread, Nutcracker? Because that's how the waste of money that is 'food tech' makes me feel.

I'm not sure that I'd ever really trust something containing meat or dairy that had been cooked at school.

£10 is a lot of money though. Did you use saver/value/essentials stuff?

New tupperware might be in order.

We needed 3 chicken breasts, 2 spoons of tikka paste (had to buy whole jar), rice, natural yoghurt (had to buy big tub), tomatoe soup, and other bits and bobs.

The chicken was over £4 on it's own and the jar of sauce was about £2.50.

I wish they would just tell the dc to take in a set amount of money and then the school supply the stuff. Surely that would be easier and cheaper.

Feel free Linerunner

3 chicken breasts? And a can of soup?

What were they supposed to be learning from this exactly?

Christ knows Splinters. Tbh the cooking lessons are generally shit.

I don't know why schools don't charge per term for cookery ingredients and supply everything. They could buy staples in particular much more cheaply - so that not every kid needs to take in sugar, salt etc.

There seems to be more emphasis on writing up the process, and evaluation of stuff like who the dish appeals to, whether it's balanced protein, carbs etc than on actually cooking the stuff. There are very few marks related to taste (or so it seems).

Ey, don't sweat it.
It's free education - if £10 is all you have to pay every now and then for her to get qualified, that is a bargain.

Don't think of it as food, think of it as equipment for school (like that textbook she lost or those pencils that got broken).

You probably wouldn't enjoy the food she made anyway. Cooking skills have to start somewhere!

Stick to the value ranges next time.

Okayhazel - £10 is a lot of money to me tbh. Obviously, i will just chalk it up to experience but I still thing it is wrong.

I didn't even know pupils had to take their own ingredients in, when I was at school a certain amount of money had to be paid at the start of term to cover the cost. It sounds incredibly wasteful.

Nutcracker - But on the whole, the education is free. You're still getting a bargain.

We'll have to agree to disagree hazel.

It's a disgrace, some of the stuff my DC have made I wouldn't feed to the dog.

We had great food tech. A chef used to come in and take the lessons. We made some fantastic things. The five-tier wedding cake was my favourite.

We did have to take in hundreds of ingredients, and it cost a small fortune. They weren't keen on people buying things that "compromised the taste" either, so there were often recommended brands.

But food tech food isn't supposed to be consumed. The school did make it clear in the first lesson that they didn't recommend eating it, but if you did, it should be for lunch. They weren't keen on us throwing it away at school so would say to take it home and show people before throwing it away, and most people did eat it, but it's worth noting that they don't usually make the food edible. It typically isn't stored properly (there are usually fridges but things go in and out during the day depending on who else needs to get things), cutlery etc is washed by students and therefore might not be clean, and other people do open tupperware tubs and put horrible things in.

Doesnt seem like she's getting much of a food tech education either though

I'd rather be paying a tenner in a state school and see that go to waste than private school fees!

Really Caja ?? What a disgusting waste of food then. We have never been told that the food isn't to be eaten.

I will get dd to check that.

What's the point of learning to make a meal that isn't supposed to be eaten? Shocking waste of money, time and food.

what okayhazael said

yanbu.

i can't believe that they couldn't get the lid to fit.
and then would just chuck it!

that's just insane.
not even "ring your mum for some advice" or knowing that tupperware tub lids are stiff and hard to fit deliberately so that they don't just randomly come off on the way home like some cheaper containers!

Hazel, i'm a single mum of 3 dc. Two of those are at secondary school. I cannot afford to chuck £10 down the drain, which is what i feel I have done, as dd's food has been thown in the bin.

It's not the schools fault that you provided your child with equipment that she couldn't use properly! Nor is it their job to find something else for her to put her food in because you failed to provide something suitable.

Yabvu.

Caja - that's ridiculous too - when I was at school, cooking lessons were deliberately designed so that you could take the food home to be eaten by the family.